


damn your love, damn your life

by shmorgas



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cabin Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Realism, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 23:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11367861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shmorgas/pseuds/shmorgas
Summary: Nicke had to make a choice, had to leave before he died of a broken heart.





	damn your love, damn your life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeswayappianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/gifts).



> Title comes "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac and is the perfect backdrop to all things that are witching. To my recipient, I wanted to give you magical Nicky/Sid/Geno/Alex and have only really scratched the surface. I hope that you still enjoy (and it may have a timestamp later. I did ask about magical gender sliding for a reason)!

Magic is a fickle fucking entity and Nicke would like to shake his fist at the gods for giving him his magic. Because his magic made him a perfect coven that likes to dangle things in front of him like Tantalus. Nicke is not being an overly dramatic fuck when he says this.

He sits in the sun, sticking his toes in the sand and sea while his coven bond feel the pure animal joy that Sid and Geno are feeling, drinking in the high of the repeat. Alex is wandering somewhere in Russia with his dogs and feeling contentment rather than sorrow that a Russian lifted the cup this year. Nicke lets these feelings wash over him, one last time, trying to make it fit the spaces his heart finds empty.

 

+++++++++

 

Nicke knew about the Coven long before the Coven knew about him because of how legendary the formation happened. You have on one end Alexander Ovechkin, a storm contained, and on the other Sidney Crosby, dangerously still yet burning. They shake hands in their introductions when all of a sudden, their magics collide and twine together. A perfect partnership despite the fact that most covens require at least six months of courtship and rarely succeed being apart most of the time. The NHL was in an uproar and then there were trade rumors before both teams said that they would not be giving up their rookies for the sake of a coven.

The fervor of their joining was just barely dying down, when Nicke flew in for the draft and found himself standing in front of thousands, pulling on a Capitals jersey and shaking hands with everyone on stage. He reached his hand to Alexander, and thus sealing his fate. 

Alex - Sasha, Ovi - all the names are his but which one to use is lost to Nicke because he’s in a blizzard. It’s consuming him and whatever is left is being chased with fire and there is a storm in that coven. The storm coaxes Nicke’s own magic and lightning joins this force, dancing among the fire and snow like it belonged. 

“Fuck,” was the first word Nicke said and Alex laughs, bright and open with the promise of his addition to the Conven, and Nicke can feel the echo of Sid's answering laugh along the bonds, forming so fast among the three of them. Nicke feels whole for once, Alex and Sid bracketing him in his mind and it is so beautiful. 

To create even more of an uproar, they supported his decision to go back to Sweden and develop more. Sid traveled to him to make his opinion clear.

“What the fuck,” Nicke yelled when he got back to his room and saw Sid was standing there.

“Sorry, sorry, I needed to see you alone. Alex can’t hog you, team or not,” Sid said. Nicke gave Sid a look of are you fucking kidding me and Sid turned red.

“Uh yeah, I get your point,” he said.

“Ok, so what do you want?” 

“I want to talk about hockey.”

There was some amusement in the bond, all Alex, all teasing and Sid became redder, muttering about men who break their promises. Alex faded out of communication, still there but silent to give them privacy. 

“Do you want to stay in North America?” Sid asked.

“I was drafted fourth overall,” Nicke said. Language isn’t an issue, meaning conveyed through magic and the bond of the coven.

“Well yeah, but do you want to stay here now or do you want to come in at your own terms?” Sid asked and oh, OH. How does he already know Nicke all the way through?

“Will you wait for me?”

“Always.”

They spent a few hours talking before someone went up to find Nicke. Sid disappeared in flame and smoke, the little fucking show-off.

To top all of that off, the moment Nicke returned home, he felt his magic surge and be called somewhere in Pittsburgh. Something, no  _ someone _ wild was screaming at the storm. It was a challenge and they responded but oh god, how right it felt to have someone dance in all of their elements. Evgeni - Zhenya, Geno - joins the bond and is wild, wild, wild. If Nicke thought that things were perfect before, this joining somehow seemed better. Everything was aligned and right in the universe.

However, those two years in Sweden were the best decision for hockey but the worst for witchcraft. Nicke returned to a tight trio where he could only fit as an extension of Alex and it hurt him, deeply. Those years, in the end, doomed him.

 

+++++++++

 

They plan to come together at the equinox and it will be the first time since Nicke requested to leave the coven that they will see each other. Nicke finds that his mouth is dry and his hands are shaking but he does everything he can do prevent any of the three from feeling his despair. He flies back to the States from his hiding place in Navagio, Greece and tries to not feel too comfortable with the magics calling him home. He dreams of fire, ice, and wild animals licking on his skin. It is calling back to him and Nicke refuses to sink into the feeling. 

It would be easier to fly straight to their cabin in the Rays Hill range, almost halfway between Pittsburgh and D.C., but Nickey requires a long journey so he can put on a brave face. Nicke flies to D.C. and goes straight home, making sure to avoid the paths and ways Alex could have gone. He opens his garage to his car and camping gear, stuffing everything in the back and then driving to the local supermarket to raid the snack aisle. The traditional fare to breaking coven included blood sacrifices but they are past that. Whatever is on hand works.

The drive hurts.

Nicke isn’t doing anything other than sitting and pressing a pedal, with some wheel turning, but doing it feels like agony. He’s in the process of ripping his soul and it’s pain unlike anything else he’s ever had to push through before. He may or may not have pulled to the side of the road to cry, trying to contain his lightning as it sparked on his skin.

The closer he gets, the worse it gets so Nicke has to get back on the road. 

 

+++++++

 

The cabin is screaming on the astral plane when Nicke pulls up, like it knows about the pain that is leaking from all of them. Nicke wouldn’t be surprised considering the number of wards and enchantments that Geno placed all over the place.

“We deserve home without lookers,” he had said when they first got it and life was golden. Nicke remembers the nights they’ve had, a fire roaring while they were all spread around the couches. Alex and Sid were being little shits fucking around in Grand Theft Auto while Nicke and Geno sat together reading. Geno’s legs would be on Nicke’s lap and Nicke would sit there and idly stroke his ankle bone while reading his latest harlequin that nobody really laughed at except for the occasional chirp.

Nobody else is there and that’s not because of any ritualistic reasoning: it’s because everyone else likes to be late-ass fuckers. Nicke walks through the threshold and wonders if it’s the magic or his heart hurting him. There’s the creaky floorboard, there’s the moose antlers that Sid came home with and hung up because he went on a power move to make this place more Canadian, there’s the bear skin that Geno retaliated with, there’s the nook that Alex stood in laughing at his partners for being competitive little shitheads.

Love just ebbs and flows from this cabin. It permeates everything that is in here which is why Nicke is leaving. He does not, can not, handle another day being on the fringes of what the three of them are, lovers and coven and perfect in every way, while he fucking pines to be a part of them. He’s almost thirty and while that birthday has no real magical quality to it, it just reminds him how much closer he is towards his middling stage and it’s time to drop the things that hurt.

 

++++++++

 

It’s almost twilight when they arrive in the Range Rover and Nicke would like to roll his eyes over the fucking stereotype Sid is. If it was up to Alex and Geno, it would be flashier but Sid has comfortable seating for grown hockey players so, that’s how that happened.

He feels it when all of them cross into the cabin and doesn’t turn around from the dinner they’ll be sharing before the ritual. There is no joy in this task.

“Nicky,” Alex says, making his name into a plea. Nicke thinks about the searing kiss they shared before he went to Paris and he buries the feeling deep down. Alex is his liney and Nicke needs to leave this place being able to keep it like that.

“Eat,” Nicke replies. Short sentences are how they’re all going to get through this.

Geno is the first to move because he has never said no to food and thus the most miserable dinner begins. Nobody talks. Their magic doesn’t move and Nicke tries to not cry about that.

They gather the plates and they place them in the sink, water in between each one to make scrubbing easier. Nobody touches one another because then they will all fall apart. They file out and walk to the porch, spreading out to their chosen directions.

“Lars Nicklas, you wish to break coven. We heed your request, but we ask of one thing before you leave us,” Alex says.

“What is that?” 

Geno is the first to walk over and he kisses Nicke like he’s drowning. Before Nicke could understood what was happening, Geno left and Sid walked over and pressed his hand into Nicke’s face, thumb brushing over the cheekbone. Another kiss, another rising panic. Alex starts to walk over and Nicke starts crying, causing everything and everyone to stand still.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

“Nicky?” 

“You can’t do this to me,” he sobs.

“What do you mean?” Geno asks.

“I already know I don’t fit. I know it. You love me but not enough to include me and I have to leave! I have to leave because I’m not enough for you,” Nicke cries and fuck, that snot is flowing. He sinks down to the wood, trying to make himself as small as possible. He feels the panic grow and grow but it’s becoming clearer that the source isn’t just him. Someone is touching his shoulders and he looks up to see Sid, worried and anxious and miserable. Nicke follows his touch, Alex and Geno pressed close, back into the cabin and sit on the bear skin rug.

“Nicky, what’s been going on?” Alex asks, soft and steady.

“I don’t fit. At most I fit with you through Alex. Like, I’m here when we all are together but when we are apart, I’m not a piece. I’m forgotten and left behind and I couldn’t take it anymore,” Nicke answers and he’s not making much sense, but it’s the truth of his heart. He connects to Sid and Geno through Alex and it pains him so much. There’s no more direct contact like a friend, not since his draft day a decade ago.

“Oh,” Sid says and he sounds very, very small. It’s hard to be told that you’ve been treating someone like shit for years.

“This is my fault,” Alex says, his hands pulling at his face. He looks older, tired, repentant. “When you came back, you were uneasy and I wanted to help. We, all of us, can be a lot.”

“‘Let’s not overwhelm him’ is what he said,” Sid says softly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“Exactly what I said. ‘How about we talk to Nicky? Make sure we are all on same page.’ But noooooooooooooo, everything is ‘fine’,” Geno says, obviously angry. 

Sid and Alex are pale. Nicke takes a few centering breaths. 

“So what now?” he asks. 

“Do you still want to go through the breaking of coven?” Sid asks, quietly and afraid of Nicke’s answer.

“I never wanted to. But something has to change,” he answers. 

“Like take you on dates?” Geno asks. Nicke looks at him and Geno is hopeful, a hand barely reaching out like he’s afraid that it will be rejected. Nicke reaches out and holds on, pressing a kiss against Geno’s knuckles. Alex rests his forehead on the back of Nicke’s neck while Sid has a hand on his thigh. It’s everything that Nicke wants and needs.

“I’d like that,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to my beta, theminimumark, who helped me when I got stuck. Also many thanks to the mod who also held my hand towards the end. You are both treasures.


End file.
